Melville House - Diego Maradona: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations

ROGER BENNETT

One of Diego Armando Maradonas most remarkable legacies is that the tiny giant provided everyone blessed to have watched him play with some of their most profound life memories. I am among them. As a kid growing up in Liverpool, Maradonas single-handed 1986 World Cup destruction of the England national football team by means most foul, was one of the most brutal life lessons I learned in my teens: a crash course in ethics. The game, played at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, in the shadow of the 1982 Falklands War, saw El Pibe de Oro score two of the most unforgettable World Cup goals of all time. One illegitimate, in which the squat five-foot-five-inch Diego used his left fist to reach over a six-foot goalkeeper and punch the ball into the netan arch moment of impudence which became known as The Hand of God as soon as the Argentinian admitted it had been scored a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God. Four minutes later, while the English were still reeling, he scored a solo goal even God would have had problems replicating, lacerating the entire English team in the course of a spectacular sixty-yard dash, during which he slalomed through six English players while, in the words of the British commentator, turning like a little eel.

This was an English team that prided itself on grit and physicality. The last two defenders attempted to take out the man rather than the ball, only to bounce off him. I still swear you could hear Maradonas scornful laughter as they did so. So breathtaking was the goal that Steve Hodge, the English midfielder charged with marking Maradona, revealed that his impulse as the ball crossed the line was to clap. I felt far less charitable in the moment, experiencing my heroes emasculation as failure. Seething with rage at the final whistle, my brother and I charged outside, desperate for the kind of emotional release that can only be gained by playing football in the street.

Overwhelmed by grief, and desperate to vent, I blasted the first shot that came my way straight through the window of our home. Before the shattered glass had finished falling from the window, my father came outside to find me standing in the middle of the road with tears of anger still stinging. Rather than being annoyed, my father shared our pain. He simply nodded, then solemnly hugged us both. I understand, lads, he said. I understand.

Over time, my perspective on footballlike that on beer, Jell-O, and leafy greenshas evolved. I have come to realize that footballs greatest gift is its ability to make you feel. I often joke that the sport allows me to experience human emotions, such as joy, misery, victory, and loss, that normal people experience in real life but that I am dead to inside. No one made me feel more alive than Maradona in that moment, and I am not alone. Throughout his career, Maradona made entire cities, regions, and nations come together and share some of the most profound, empowering, and joyful experiences of their lives.

Cherubic of face, curly of hair, Diego rose to become a religious icon. There is a line in Asif Kapadias incredible film Diego Maradona in which it is revealed that almost every home in Naples had a photo of Maradona hanging on a wall, many alongside an image of Jesus. I once corresponded with the late Uruguayan poet Eduardo Galeano and asked him about his warning in relation to Maradona: When humans become gods, there is only one ultimate outcome, they have to become fallen gods. Anyone who watched Maradona flail during the embers of his career will know this is trueeven more so throughout his peripatetic retirement in which he often cut a beleaguered, corpulent figure in search of sanctuary.

Galeano explained: Maradona became a kind of dirty god, the most human of the gods. That perhaps explains the universal veneration he conquered, more than any other player. I love that framing: the most human of gods. A gent who experienced extremes of ecstasy and misery, veneration and loneliness, in a way that encapsulates life itself. Shortly after my conversation with Galeano, I came into possession of a signed photograph of Maradona punching the ball over Peter Shilton, the bewildered England goalkeeper. I framed the image and hung it on the wall opposite my desk, where it sits today. A moment which traumatized me so badly as a kid is now the one thing I look at every single daya reminder of Diego, his power, and his singular ability to make the world feel alive.